


Unable to Perceive the Shape of You

by gallantrejoinder



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Cheerful tags I know., Despair, F/M, Loneliness, Mind Control, Mind Meld, My boy is the king of denial, This is how Ben Solo attempts to justify the events of TLJ to himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 00:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallantrejoinder/pseuds/gallantrejoinder
Summary: He has waited a lifetime to be alone inside his head, and finally the day has come where he can be.But he wishes he wasn't.





	Unable to Perceive the Shape of You

The battle consumes him from the moment Snoke dies, and so there is no time to reflect on the deafening silence that is steadily growing louder inside him.

It's strange. He cannot regret killing his master, for he cannot take back what is done, and _will_ not, for only the future exists. The past is a thing lost to him. It must be.

But it is so very empty inside his head.

Before there had always been - something. It changed, day to day. Often it came as an ache, a terrible pain that shot through the back of his skull and towards his eyes, stopping him from sleeping. Insomnia was a friend to him from a young age, and some distant part of him recalls his mother returning late at night to his bed, where she would sigh and frown with worry at seeing him still awake. He saw many medical experts when he was young, but of course none of them knew how to fix him. None of them knew the source of the pain.

It was not always so obvious, though, the feeling of Snoke. Sometimes was the lightest pressure against his forehead, like a finger being pressed between his eyebrows. He would rub at the spot until it turned pink, and once, another of his uncle's students laughed at him and told him that if he kept that up, he'd get pimples and sores there. He managed to stop doing it after that, but the feeling never left. It came sometimes in his dreams.

And when he finally made his way to Snoke, with the destruction of his uncle's great work still burning like a fever in his blood, he began to understand that his headaches and the heavy feeling against his forehead were one and the same. They were the distant brush of a powerful Force user, observing, never interfering. And when Ben Solo died, opening his mind for the first time willingly to Snoke, he realised with dull surprise that the feeling was just the way it had felt to have his uncle inside his mind - only nights ago.

Snoke was not like his uncle, though. Snoke knew his innermost thoughts and desires, and pushed him, again and again and again, until he became capable of achieving them. He was grateful, at first. Almost something like greedy, for the supreme leader's approval. That went unremarked, his need for guidance, for the supreme leader's praise.

Until Han Solo died.

Kylo Ren, the Jedi Killer, the protege of the most powerful Force user known to the galaxy - suddenly all that was worthless. Because it hurt to become those things, and he was learning that his sacrifices did not count if they hurt. He resolved, almost instantly, to only ever feel anger again, to show his master who he could be without the legacy of Ben Solo, without the mask, without his father's hand like a brand against his cheek -

And then, wonder, she was there.

And she looked at him and called him a monster, a murderer, a traitor to his family.

And he understood that he no longer needed to bow before an old man who could not afford to lose his most powerful weapon.

 

* * *

(He does not remember the warmth of her fingertips, searing as brightly as his father's hand. He does not remember the gasp that left her mouth, or the tears that she shed for him. He does not remember the feeling of being inside her, of her inside him, of knowing in an instant every hurt and triumph and struggle and stillness she'd ever lived. He does not remember how strangely small she'd looked, peering up at him through that tiny window. He does not remember the gentle sound of her voice, the name she'd called him. He does not remember how she looked up at him with fear and faith warring inside her. He does not remember how she felt at his back, the way her hand reached out with not hesitation, for his support. He does not remember looking at her in the aftermath, a new feeling inside him, a feeling that burst open like a flower, like an uncontrollable shiver, like a jump to lightspeed before the ship finishes calculating. He does not remember how she looked with a broken heart. He does not remember her winking out of existence, like a distant star, or a planet lost in an instant, a voice crying out, suddenly silenced.)

* * *

 

It is so very, very silent inside him.

The clawing feeling, desperate for his attention, begins as he kneels in the the wreck of the stronghold on Crait. He holds himself together well, as he tells himself he always has, before his subordinates. He sneers at Hux, furious at what they have lost, and when it is all done and no one has need of him anymore, he stumbles into a room - it may be his, it may not be - and collapses to the floor, gasping for air.

He cannot breathe, cannot think. There's nothing there. Nothing inside him. This is what he wanted, isn't it? Snoke is dead. He is the supreme leader now, he has outlived his master, destroyed the last barrier to his full strength. He squeezes his eyes shut, but behind his eyelids, the image of Snoke's severed body brings him no comfort as it repeats, and loops, like a glitching holovid, forcing itself upon him. He feels adrift, lost in the vast emptiness of space, like his mother must be. His stomach roils with the sensation of weightlessness, and he retches, but nothing comes up. 

He pushes his back against the door, breathing heavily, eyes fluttering open and shut. He fights the urge to break down, to give in and cry out for all the pain.

The feelings come back to him, one by one, against his will. He doesn't want to think about her. He doesn't want to think about how deeply she betrayed him. What it means that she was still there after he killed Snoke, still before him, alone, with hatred in her eyes as he knelt before her. _She was still there_.

They saw each other without trying, without someone else pulling their strings, with nothing but the force connecting their spirits. He can easily believe that Snoke built the bridge between them. Only someone as powerful as his former master could. To try himself, or if she had dared - it would have killed them. And his uncle -

His uncle is so many things, but he isn't that powerful.

Yet the truth remains. They saw one another without seeking one another, while Snoke's body still lay dead upon the floor. 

He can be alone in his head now. He doesn't want that awful sticking, sinking feeling, the pressure that Snoke brought him. His mind doesn't yet know how to cope without it, but it will. He'll learn. Almost all living creatures live like this, and he can learn to as well.

But -

He leans his head against the door, resisting the urge to throw it back in violence, which would only give him a splitting headache for nothing at all.

He remembers the feeling of her mind encasing his. His mind enveloping hers. Merging for only a moment. Despite the revelations it gave them both, it was peaceful. He's never before felt that - calm. That _sure_ of anything.

No, no, he has. He must have. He was sure when he killed Snoke. Sure even when he killed Han Solo.  _Certain_ that was he was doing was right.

He forces himself to move.

He leaves the room, and has his few wounds attended to. He strips away his clothes, ruined by salt, and washes away the sweat stuck in his hair. And he lays down to rest, not allowing himself to ponder if sleep will be different now without someone else's presence lurking in his dreams.

But in the place between buzzing consciousness and total unawareness, that sly passage between the waking and dreaming worlds, he remembers her again. The feeling of her. Of not being alone, and that being a _comfort_ , for once. 

He does not dream at all.

**Author's Note:**

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> 
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